House Party was founded by former UX designer-turned-entrepreneur Lauren Joyner. Growing up in the south, Lauren was raised on a diet of meat and dairy, and queso was an essential staple at the dinner table. As an adult, however, Lauren started to become increasingly interested in plant-based alternatives to animal products. While she was grateful for her design career, Lauren wanted to make the biggest impact she could on the food system. At the time, Lauren had decided to adopt a fully plant-based diet and happened to be working on a homemade vegan queso recipe. She missed the cheese dip that she grew up devouring and wanted to recreate the nostalgic cheesy flavors using vegetables.

Over a period of 6 months, Lauren worked on dialing in her plant-based questo recipe. Initially, she had created the recipe to satisfy her own cravings, but she soon realized that she could turn it into a business and impact more lives. Lauren hand-peeled hundreds of potatoes in a test kitchen, experimenting with cooking times, consistency, and various spice blends until she landed on the potato-based recipe that would eventually become House Party’s first product. In early 2019, she soft-launched her queso in locations around San Francisco and saw huge success. It was such a hit with the students at the University of San Francisco that House Party replaced the dairy nacho cheese in their main cafeteria. Today, the House Party team is continuing to live out its mission of changing the way people eat for the better.